Forms: 4–7 apoplexie (4–5 poplexie, 6 poplesye), 7– apoplexy. [a. Fr. apoplexie, ad. L. apoplēxia (occas. used in Eng.), a. Gr. ἀποπληξία name of the same malady, f. ἀποπλήσσ-ειν to disable by a stroke, f. ἀπό off, (in comb.) completely + πλήσσ-ειν to strike.]
1. A malady, very sudden in its attack, which arrests more or less completely the powers of sense and motion; it is usually caused by an effusion of blood or serum in the brain, and preceded by giddiness, partial loss of muscular power, etc.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Nun Pr. T., 21. Napoplexie [v.r. nepoplexie] ne shente nat hir heed.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., III. xv. (1495), 59. Apoplexia is a euyll that makith a man lese all maner feling.
1552. Lyndesay, Monarche, IV. 5117. Sum ar dissoluit suddantlye Be Cattarue or be Poplesye.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., I. ii. 126. This Apoplexie is (as I take it) a kind of Lethargie, a sleeping of the blood, a horson Tingling.
1748. Thomson, Cast. Indol., lxxvii. 692. Whilst Apoplexy cramm’d Intemperance knocks Down to the ground at once, as butcher felleth ox.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, I. ii. 11. Frequent apoplexies would be the result of the horizontal position.
b. in Falconry.
1614. Markham, Cheape Hvsb. (1623), 163. The Apoplexie or falling euill in Hawkes.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., Apoplexy … a Disease that seizes the Heads of Hawks, commonly by reason of two much Grease and Store of Blood.
2. transf. or fig.
1589. Pasquil’s Return, B iiij b. His disease is the very Apoplexie of the Donatistes.
1678. Yng. Man’s Call., 52. Foolishness: it is the souls apoplexy, wherein all the noble faculties of the mind are cast into a dead sleep.
1866. Motley, Dutch Rep., VI. iii. 824. The country was without a centre. There was small chance of apoplexy where there was no head.
3. Also applied by some to the effusion of blood in other organs.
1853. Mayne, Exp. Lex., Apoplexy cutaneous, a singular term employed by certain French writers for a great and sudden determination of blood to the skin.
1880. Syd. Soc. Lex., Apoplexy retinal, effusion of blood in the retina from rupture of its vessels.
